


One Day

by The_Lights_Dance_On



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Accidents, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arson, Character Death, Child Death, Death, Deliberately Setting Shit On Fire, Fire, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Happy Ending?, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Motherhood, Parenthood, Recovery, Train accident, arson?, single mother, train crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 05:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17135588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lights_Dance_On/pseuds/The_Lights_Dance_On
Summary: Sometimes you have to destroy before you can heal. A grieving mother turns to an odd process in order to cope with the death of her child.





	One Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is super short but oh well.
> 
> TW: death, accident, hospital, grief, mention of alcohol abuse in an attempt to drown away one's sorrows, a nosy jogger

It is strange, how your world can concave in on itself in one day.

She had picked Theo up from school, and then, they had boarded the train like they had done every day since Theo had started school. And _then_ -

For a moment, darkness had flung itself into the room. The lights had feebly sputtered into sparks of sudden light, and then they gave up. The train began to leap higher than ever before, rearing and screaming like a wild horse on the tracks. It had struck through the tunnel like a worm at a million miles per hour, writhing and wriggling, bucking like some iniquitous mechanical snake. Theo had been screaming, crying, holding his hands over his ears, and Alicia had pulled him towards her, up her leg like when he was a toddler, so that his chest was over hers and their heartbeats had knocked against their chests in a frantic unison-

And then the train hit the wall with a clang of metal and a screech of blood, and Alicia jolted forward and then back and Theo was torn from her arms-

When the lights were back on, there was an old man lying rigid on his back. A teenage girl was sobbing and pushing at her friend’s chest. But all of it turned to white noise and blurred image when she saw Theo; Theo, lying there, limp and pale and fragile as china. 

When she had ran to him and put herself over him, her baby boy’s heartbeat did not thump with hers. It was weak and inconsistent, and when Theo’s eyes opened they were faded and uncomprehending. They had never been like that. Even as a baby, he had been alert, curious, searching out complexities and simplicities alike to try and understand, and when he understood he had such joy. He used to watch nature programmes, and science shows, and when he learnt something new he’d grin. She had loved it when he smiled; it was like the sun had teeth.

The sun looked white when he died. It had been one day; well, as close to one day as anything. Twenty-three hours, forty-four minutes, in which the heartbeat became steadily slower, and unfalteringly fainter, and then the beep had rung out like some kind of awful mourning hymn-

The events of that one day had been playing out behind Alicia’s eyelids since. She was sure that if she cut through her eye’s tissue and peeled back the skin, you’d see mechanics and blood and that clinical white hospital bed - so different from his one at home. He had a green duvet cover, with dinosaurs; he knew all of their names, and would recite them solemnly as a prayer. The only thing Theo knew better than his dinosaur encyclopaedia was his mother. 

Now that green duvet cover was folded into a square. With it, that revered encyclopaedia, and all the dinosaur toys; three great piles of books; four bin bags stuffed with clothes and shoes; school books from reception; a baby Annabel doll and buggy; pots of lurid green slime; a set of colouring books … everything was wrapped up crudely in his favourite yellow blanket.

All she was to keep of Theo was the photo album, filled with pictures of chocolate curls and those curious eyes and that sunny smile. She left that on the ground.

She was here, in the woods. Theo had loved this spot. He had climbed up the trees and had dinosaur battlefields on the earth and grass and once, against all warnings from his mother, had plunged himself in the river. The water shifted and rippled, the sunlight moving up and down the blue like it was waving at her. Or beckoning her.

_Do it, already._

Alicia took the bottle of tequila and smashed it over the contents of that great yellow spread. She had tried everything, since that beep, from alcohol to working late to nightclubs, but there was nothing that could fill up the space that was Theo. After she had tried, she had left them untouched. Work was becoming a monotonous, somnolent void of nothingness. Her managers were understanding but she wasn’t sure how far and how long their kindness would extend. Nightclubs were dizzying flashes of music and noise, and now confusion merely terrified her. The bottle of tequila had been left untouched on the shelf, attracting dust like moths to a light. 

Once, Theo had come back from school with a book about fire. He had told her that methane was the most flammable alcohol. 

She struck the match, a tiny, fiery, sun, a beacon of hope. And she dropped it, and in that same movement she took that big blanket of yellow memories and tossed them in the river that Theo had once flung himself into, even as it burnt in fire, into that big blue wet expanse of serenity-

At first the fire devoured it all with ferocity, flames buzzing lowly like fat yellow flies feasting on Theo’s remains. The tongues lapped hungrily up at it, and there was something malicious in those slow striking licks of all that was left. But the water soon placated it, into a soft effervescence on the surface of the water, and Alicia didn’t notice how it didn’t immediately occur to her that Theo loved bubbly drinks.

She watched the blanket and its contents sink. And then she just sat there, even when the clouds started drumming up their own fresh version of Hell, until she couldn’t tell whether it was tears or rain. 

A runner stopped. He could no better see the extinguished flame than see the extinguished life that wore her down so heavy, but he clearly could see something, because he approached her.

‘What happened to you?’ he asked. Curiosity, more than anything, was present in his voice.

‘Hell,’ she replied brusquely.

Pause.

‘But I’ll get over it.’ 

It is strange, how your world can start rebuilding itself in one day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for getting all the way down here! Feedback (as always) is appreciated, as would be checking out my other works!


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